The sun shone brightly, completely oxymoronic to the atmosphere below. Almost as if mocking the tragedy that it illuminated.
All students, teachers and family, garmented in black, stood as silently as though it was them who were in the grave.
This was not how anyone imagined how their holidays would start.
A funeral on their very third day. Not just anybody's funeral. The funeral of their very own classmate. Schoolmate. Friend.
"May his soul find itself, over watching from.....",
Kana couldn't hear the rest of the words. She felt a lump rising in her throat, choking her. She stood quite alone, while everyone else was with their family. She could not find any of her friends in the mass, she didn't need to. She didn't come here for that.
How did this happen?
Kana didn't know, it all just happened. No warning, no information, just bang. The way the world works. The way it always had worked.
The cruel world.
She was approaching the grave now, the mass was close to dispersing. She spotted Matt's parents a little ahead of her, and beside the grave.... Matt.
Was she imagining it?
No, it was definitely Matt, with half of his face hidden under a bandage. The same way she saw him three nights ago, at the hospital. Kana was surprised. She didn't expect Matt to show up.
To show up at Steve's funeral.
The person who did disfigure his face.
Matt looked upon the grave, wondering why his last, and also first memory, was an argument. A single tear moved steadily down his only visible eye. He didn't want this to happen, and somehow, felt he was to blame. Steve died right after attacking him.
Was it guilt?
He wondered. It could be, after all, it was a suicide.
The will he must've had...
Matt thought, after all, Steve killed himself banging his head on a tree. He remembered someone telling him the number of times it took.
He winced, almost threw up, and moved away, regrouping with his family.
Thirty seven...
All of them left wounds, he was told, when he woke up in a hospital. He was out for 13 hours, he was told, and brought in the hospital in the arms of a little girl who didn't give her name. The nurse who was tending to him knew just one descriptive clue, the girl had red hair.
Kana walked slowly, her thought brewing up an incredible storm. She still couldn't believe it, was it her fault??
Did Steve kill himself just because she had rejected him? She felt a sharp pain in her chest, as though someone just stabbed her, piercing her.
She fell to her knees, square in the center of the road.
Is this guilt??
She wondered, was it really her fault? Would she be ignorant if she thought that it wasn't??
She drew a sharp breath, icy, that hurt her lungs, picked herself up, and moved on.
She remembered carrying Matt from the car, rushing into the hospital emergency room.
"Young lady, if you were even a minute late, he would have died. You saved his life."
Kana returned home after that, after the doc told her that Matt would be completely okay. She relaxed and enjoyed the night with her friends at her place. It was a day later that she received the news of a funeral.
Her first thought was that Matt had not made it, but it seemed he was recovering perfectly.
It was Steve who had died. The very same day he had confessed.
Kana wondered where he was now.
Heaven?
The grave?
Wandering the earth?
Looking over her?
Wanting revenge?
A new chain of thoughts emerged. She kept walking on, her home was just a block away now.
Or was there even an afterlife?
Did he stop existing altogether?
Did he turn back to nothingness?
Nonexistent?
Is that what would happen to me too?
What would I gain even if I did change the world?
Kana knew this was just her grief thinking, and knew she should end this thought chain before she would succumb to depression, but she just couldn't help it.
What's the point in making the world a better place?
We're just going to die anyway!!
The wind picked up from behind, blowing her hair in front of her face.
Red.
The color of both her parents hair.
She knew why know.
Even if we are going to die, even if we do cease to exist, we should make sure living here was worth it.
That's why I have to do it.
Change the world.
She unlocked her door, pushed it open,
"I'm home!"
She slammed it shut, locking it with all her negative thoughts outside. She grieved over Steve's death, now she had to prevent more.
She had to move on.
**********
Amidst the shadows, a darker figure sighed, peeking around the corner, staring at Kana's front door.
" I should not have picked her, she's too strong for me."
The figure twisted around and made it's way back, away from Kana's home.
"I wonder how my brother is doing... Who did he pick..? Wait... It was Leaf or Leave or something... Ah... It was Steve."
The figure moved stealthily, always in the shadows, unnoticed.
It looked over someone else. She was old. She had a big cart in front of her, full of golden balls.
She would do just fine.
